Saturday, May 25, 2013
Conservatives are Irresponsible
Conservatives whinge on about accountability, but the reality is they never take responsibility for their failures to act appropriately to preserve the public good. Taking responsibility is consistently what they want OTHER people to do, usually involving some form of individual sacrifice, while they don't.
Less than 5% of OK schools have tornado protection, yet they are among the states with the highest numbers of these disasters, OK is among the top three for having such disasters declared and for receiving federal aid for them. Will they REQUIRE their building codes to change accordingly? Hell no -- that is an individual decision.
Yeah, right up until it is a failed decision, kids die, adults die, and the rest of the nation is supposed to pay for their failure to TAKE RESPONSIBILITY. And to make matters worse, those irresponsible damned conservatives, at all levels, local, state, and federal, cut funding to first responders, and to services like those which provide weather monitoring and alerts, that aid people in taking shelter.
Irresponsible, DEPENDENT failures, conservatives are penny wise, dollar cheap; they are epic failures in governing, and they cost us all MORE money, in the long run, not less, with less value to show for the expenditures. But hey - it FEELS good to them, so logic and facts and results be damned. Conservatives tend to be old, but not wise, and not mature.
Less than 5% of OK schools have tornado protection, yet they are among the states with the highest numbers of these disasters, OK is among the top three for having such disasters declared and for receiving federal aid for them. Will they REQUIRE their building codes to change accordingly? Hell no -- that is an individual decision.
Yeah, right up until it is a failed decision, kids die, adults die, and the rest of the nation is supposed to pay for their failure to TAKE RESPONSIBILITY. And to make matters worse, those irresponsible damned conservatives, at all levels, local, state, and federal, cut funding to first responders, and to services like those which provide weather monitoring and alerts, that aid people in taking shelter.
Irresponsible, DEPENDENT failures, conservatives are penny wise, dollar cheap; they are epic failures in governing, and they cost us all MORE money, in the long run, not less, with less value to show for the expenditures. But hey - it FEELS good to them, so logic and facts and results be damned. Conservatives tend to be old, but not wise, and not mature.
Friday, May 24, 2013
Gun Money, or Grandson? Special Interests and ALEC, or Minnesota Citizens' Safety?
Cross posted from MNPP:
Last night the 17 year old grandson of Mary Kiffmeyer threatened to kill himself and his family, especially his mother, with a shotgun in the Kiffmeyer home in Big Lake. The teen’s mother, who did not live in the home, called law enforcement, who arrested the kid.
Mary Kiffmeyer has been a MN GOP career politician, having served as a state Representative in the legislature, as Secretary of State first under Jesse Ventura, then under ol’ T-Paw, and is now serving in the state Senate during the 2013-14 , with her term ending in 2016.
She has also been the ALEC chair for Minnesota, meaning she does the bidding of that shadow organization that drafts legislation for special interests that is then pushed through by pretty much exclusively conservative politicians. In exchange, the conservative politicians sell or barter their votes to act on behalf of those special interests in exchange for perks, campaign donations, and other benefits.
The graphic below is fairly illustrative of the relationships between conservative politicians and the special interests.
One of the biggest players in ALEC is the NRA and the gun manufacturers. The NRA within ALEC has been responsible for drafting the shoot first legislation, the expansion of both open and concealed carry, and of course it is the NRA that supports public spending to put armed guards in schools and which espouses the position that the only way to stop bad guys with guns – bad guys of any age, including children – is with a good guy with a gun who shoots them, vigilante-style.
ALEC and the NRA are hand in hand behind the conservative resistance to gun control of any kind, no matter what happens, no matter how many people are the victims of gun violence. Murder / suicides, like the one threatened in Mary Kiffemeyer’s own home, are among the most frequent kinds of gun violence, not only in Minnesota, but nationwide.
The right does not care. There is too much money, too much political influence in the gun industry, even if it means their own family members are sacrificed to the corporate greed.
Mary Kiffmeyer was lucky; she wasn’t home to be part of this gun violence threat. Mary Kiffemeyer was also very lucky that law enforcement, not some neighboring vigilante with a gun who fancied himself that NRA ‘good guy with a gun’ taking down ‘the bad guy with a gun’. Because if the NRA premise had been followed, Mary Kiffmeyer could have a dead grandson, and possibly other family members dead or wounded, instead of anonymously in jail.
This raises the question, if their grandson was living with his grandparents because of some family issues that caused him NOT to be living with his parents, and given the statistics of the problems with male teens in particular with firearms and violence, how did this kid get his hands on the shotgun in the first place?
We are reassured over and over and over about how we do not need gun laws to keep children safe; this was still a minor, and he wasn’t safe with or from this shot gun. We are told over and over how responsible Minnesota gun owners are with keeping their firearms secured, telling us that we don’t need to have laws mandating safe storage or liability or property insurance on firearms, even though firearms violence, both deliberate and accidental, sucks BILLIONS out of our economy every year, such that the non-gun owners, who comprise more than 60% of the population nationally end up subsidizing the costs of firearms ownership of the steadily declining numbers of gun owners. Who besides this teen is going to be held accountable here?
Because when a teen does something bad with a gun – and this WAS certainly something BAD – then the adult responsible should be held equally accountable for the incident. Someone made some bad decisions here, and it was not ONLY this teenage boy.
This incident only serves to underline WHY we need better gun regulation in Minnesota — and makes it all too important that we follow the money behind the resistance to such obviously necessary regulation.
I’m speculating that Mary Kiffmeyer will continue to do the bidding of out of state special interests in the next session of the lege, and continue to obstruct and to oppose clearly necessary improvements in gun regulation. The money is too good. And if it means that her grandson does time in jail — well, heck, what’s wrong with that? There is plenty of big money in the prison system that the right likes to tap into as well, including pipelines that send kids into the prison system. So — why not her grandson being grist for the same mill? If it is good enough for the family members of other Minnesotans, why not hers?
What Mary Kiffmeyer does regarding guns in the next legislative session will tell us a lot about what really matters to her – family and the safety and well being of Minnesotans, including her own family; or all that filthy ALEC special interest gun money.
After all, it’s not like Mary Kiffmeyer hasn’t had some other issues with money during her career as a right wing politician. She served on the board of the “Christian” Riverview Community Bank, of which she was a part owner, that was closed by the MN Commerce Department for fiscal mismanagement. The FDIC was part of the closure of the Riverview Bank, noting “had engaged in unsafe and unsound banking practices and violations of law and/or regulation”, and cost the FDIC insurance fund some $20 million dollars. During her term in office as Sec State, an audit turned up expenditures to the tune of nearly $200,000 that was improper, and she had exaggerated some of her claims for mileage as well. Right wing money, far right wing ideology, and right wing special interests almost always seem to go hand in hand with what Kiffmeyer says and does, not the interests of the people she is supposed to be protecting and serving. It will be fascinating to see how that plays out with this incident.
Kiffmeyer’s other legal troubles involved voter suppression suits, notably Minnesota Native Americans, and separately with University of Minnesota students, both of which she lost. Not surprisingly, those are both ALEC legislative positions, as is the Voter ID legislation that Kiffmeyer nominally drafted in the legislature that lost in the 2012 election as a constitutional amendment — a wedge issue that the broke and deeply in debt MN GOP relied on for voter turnout in 2012 that backfired.
Kiffmeyer has such deep connections to ALEC that it will be VERY surprising if this incident prompts any change in her positions. She has 13 other grandchildren, so maybe she will consider this grandson to be expendable, if her ALEC puppet masters pull her strings.
What we can expect NOT to see is any personal accountability for this incident from the adults involved. Personal accountability and responsibility is something to which the right gives the emptiest lip service, along with ‘family values’, fiscal responsibility, and of course, gun safety, security and responsibility.
It will be fascinating to see what matters most to Mary Kiffmeyer, her family or right-wing money; the safety of Minnesotans, or the NRA and ALEC. I know which one I’m expecting, but I’m hoping I might be wrong; but it’s not likely.
Mary Kiffmeyer’s family gun violence problem, and the Gun Industry money and influence in the MN Legislature
photo from state lege site
Last night the 17 year old grandson of Mary Kiffmeyer threatened to kill himself and his family, especially his mother, with a shotgun in the Kiffmeyer home in Big Lake. The teen’s mother, who did not live in the home, called law enforcement, who arrested the kid.Mary Kiffmeyer has been a MN GOP career politician, having served as a state Representative in the legislature, as Secretary of State first under Jesse Ventura, then under ol’ T-Paw, and is now serving in the state Senate during the 2013-14 , with her term ending in 2016.
She has also been the ALEC chair for Minnesota, meaning she does the bidding of that shadow organization that drafts legislation for special interests that is then pushed through by pretty much exclusively conservative politicians. In exchange, the conservative politicians sell or barter their votes to act on behalf of those special interests in exchange for perks, campaign donations, and other benefits.
The graphic below is fairly illustrative of the relationships between conservative politicians and the special interests.
One of the biggest players in ALEC is the NRA and the gun manufacturers. The NRA within ALEC has been responsible for drafting the shoot first legislation, the expansion of both open and concealed carry, and of course it is the NRA that supports public spending to put armed guards in schools and which espouses the position that the only way to stop bad guys with guns – bad guys of any age, including children – is with a good guy with a gun who shoots them, vigilante-style.
ALEC and the NRA are hand in hand behind the conservative resistance to gun control of any kind, no matter what happens, no matter how many people are the victims of gun violence. Murder / suicides, like the one threatened in Mary Kiffemeyer’s own home, are among the most frequent kinds of gun violence, not only in Minnesota, but nationwide.
The right does not care. There is too much money, too much political influence in the gun industry, even if it means their own family members are sacrificed to the corporate greed.
Mary Kiffmeyer was lucky; she wasn’t home to be part of this gun violence threat. Mary Kiffemeyer was also very lucky that law enforcement, not some neighboring vigilante with a gun who fancied himself that NRA ‘good guy with a gun’ taking down ‘the bad guy with a gun’. Because if the NRA premise had been followed, Mary Kiffmeyer could have a dead grandson, and possibly other family members dead or wounded, instead of anonymously in jail.
This raises the question, if their grandson was living with his grandparents because of some family issues that caused him NOT to be living with his parents, and given the statistics of the problems with male teens in particular with firearms and violence, how did this kid get his hands on the shotgun in the first place?
We are reassured over and over and over about how we do not need gun laws to keep children safe; this was still a minor, and he wasn’t safe with or from this shot gun. We are told over and over how responsible Minnesota gun owners are with keeping their firearms secured, telling us that we don’t need to have laws mandating safe storage or liability or property insurance on firearms, even though firearms violence, both deliberate and accidental, sucks BILLIONS out of our economy every year, such that the non-gun owners, who comprise more than 60% of the population nationally end up subsidizing the costs of firearms ownership of the steadily declining numbers of gun owners. Who besides this teen is going to be held accountable here?
Because when a teen does something bad with a gun – and this WAS certainly something BAD – then the adult responsible should be held equally accountable for the incident. Someone made some bad decisions here, and it was not ONLY this teenage boy.
This incident only serves to underline WHY we need better gun regulation in Minnesota — and makes it all too important that we follow the money behind the resistance to such obviously necessary regulation.
I’m speculating that Mary Kiffmeyer will continue to do the bidding of out of state special interests in the next session of the lege, and continue to obstruct and to oppose clearly necessary improvements in gun regulation. The money is too good. And if it means that her grandson does time in jail — well, heck, what’s wrong with that? There is plenty of big money in the prison system that the right likes to tap into as well, including pipelines that send kids into the prison system. So — why not her grandson being grist for the same mill? If it is good enough for the family members of other Minnesotans, why not hers?
What Mary Kiffmeyer does regarding guns in the next legislative session will tell us a lot about what really matters to her – family and the safety and well being of Minnesotans, including her own family; or all that filthy ALEC special interest gun money.
After all, it’s not like Mary Kiffmeyer hasn’t had some other issues with money during her career as a right wing politician. She served on the board of the “Christian” Riverview Community Bank, of which she was a part owner, that was closed by the MN Commerce Department for fiscal mismanagement. The FDIC was part of the closure of the Riverview Bank, noting “had engaged in unsafe and unsound banking practices and violations of law and/or regulation”, and cost the FDIC insurance fund some $20 million dollars. During her term in office as Sec State, an audit turned up expenditures to the tune of nearly $200,000 that was improper, and she had exaggerated some of her claims for mileage as well. Right wing money, far right wing ideology, and right wing special interests almost always seem to go hand in hand with what Kiffmeyer says and does, not the interests of the people she is supposed to be protecting and serving. It will be fascinating to see how that plays out with this incident.
Kiffmeyer’s other legal troubles involved voter suppression suits, notably Minnesota Native Americans, and separately with University of Minnesota students, both of which she lost. Not surprisingly, those are both ALEC legislative positions, as is the Voter ID legislation that Kiffmeyer nominally drafted in the legislature that lost in the 2012 election as a constitutional amendment — a wedge issue that the broke and deeply in debt MN GOP relied on for voter turnout in 2012 that backfired.
Kiffmeyer has such deep connections to ALEC that it will be VERY surprising if this incident prompts any change in her positions. She has 13 other grandchildren, so maybe she will consider this grandson to be expendable, if her ALEC puppet masters pull her strings.
What we can expect NOT to see is any personal accountability for this incident from the adults involved. Personal accountability and responsibility is something to which the right gives the emptiest lip service, along with ‘family values’, fiscal responsibility, and of course, gun safety, security and responsibility.
It will be fascinating to see what matters most to Mary Kiffmeyer, her family or right-wing money; the safety of Minnesotans, or the NRA and ALEC. I know which one I’m expecting, but I’m hoping I might be wrong; but it’s not likely.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
The Right Wing 'Tenther' Hypocrisy on Immigration and Marriage
Cross-posted from MN PP:Closely associated with right-wing-nuttery are the so-called ‘tenthers’, those who support an oddly unconstitutional view of the 10th amendment relating to states rights. For those of you not familiar with the various ‘flavors’ of right wing think, here is a handy summation from Wikipedia on the topic which saves me hurting my brain trying to sum it up:
The Tenther movement is a political ideology and a social movement in the United States that espouses that many actions of the United States government are unconstitutional.[1] Adherents invoke the concept that the states share sovereignty with the federal government and with the people by citing the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution as the basis for their legal and ideological beliefs:
“ |
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. |
” |
Adherents believe that political authority enumerated in the United States Constitution as belonging to the Federal Government must be read very narrowly to exclude much of what the national government already does.[2] They argue for the recognition of limited sovereignty of the States.[3] Opponents use the term in order to draw parallels between adherents and 19th century states’ rightssecessionists, as well as the movement to resist Federal Civil Rights legislation.[4]Adherents oppose a broad range of federal government programs, including the War on Drugs, federal surveillance, and other limitations on privacy and civil and economic liberties, plus numerous New Deal legislation to Great Society legislation, such as Medicaid, Medicare, the VA health system and the G.I. Bill.[2]
…, it has been argued by tenthers that the 2003 Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas, which invalidated sodomy laws in all U.S. states where they remained, was an unconstitutional federal intrusion into what should have been a states’ rights area; from the tenther perspective, “there clearly is no right to sodomy found anywhere in the Constitution” and “the State of Texas has the right to decide for itself how to regulate social matters like sex, using its own local standards”.
In Congress this past week, Vermont Senator Leahy had introduced legislation to the Immigration reform under discussion which would allow couples in states which recognize same-sex marriage to apply for same-sex spouse green cards. Twelve states, like Minnesota, like 11 other states, already recognize same-sex marriage, and a number of other states, notably Illinois and Michigan are in the process of recognizing it.
What other right wing senators, like Lindsey Graham, did was to pressure Senator Leahy to withdraw his amendment to the legislation, indicating that inclusion of full and equal recognition of same sex marriage at the state level was a ‘deal breaker’. It’s toss up where the greatest concentration of tenthers reside – South Carolina or Texas; Loopy Lindsey has been an outspoken tenther on more than one occasion; his selective amnesia is an indictment to his sincerity.
This is ironic, given that it is precisely these same bigoted homophobes who tend to be the loudest and most strident supporters of states rights. It shows the right up for the rabid hypocrites and bigots that they are, for supporting states rights to define marriage, and then denying the states the right to define marriage when they don’t happen to like the definition of some states.
It’s time to repeal DOMA. It is past time for the SCOTUS to overturn federal laws that do not recognize same-sex marriage, NOT because of the tenth amendment, but because that is unfair federal discrimination.
While I appreciate WHY Leahy removed his amendment from consideration, it’s time to stand up to right wing bigotry and homophobia, and it is time to call out conservative hypocrisy. That needs to be true at the local, state, AND federal level. Minnesotans fought hard for marriage equality, because this move is an attempt to negate what Minnesotans have fought for so very hard this year. It is wrong for Lindsey Graham and others to try to deny us what they claim they wanted, so long as state definition of marriage went their way. Either states define marriage, or they don’t; they can’t have it both ways; but they will try if we don’t push back, hard.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
The Batshit Crazy Ladies of the Right
It's been a while since I wrote about the birther queen, Orly Taitz, or the equally nutso Michele Bachmann, our local equivalent of embarrassingly wacko.Orly Taitz was laughed out of the CPAC uninvited group. You can't get much more of a loser than to have your fellow extremists think you're too crazy for consideration. She continues to pursue failed court cases, but perhaps her wackiest NEW thing is that there are TWO President Obamas, and that one of them might be a ringer from Indonesia. But of course, she believes neither is really president.
Apparently a failure as a dentist, lawyer, and real estate salesman, Taitz is now working as a florist.....sort of..........sometimes.
Cue twilight zone theme music.
But then we have Tea Party Queen, of the just-as-crazies, Michele Bachmann who recently has tried to pray force Obama to repeal his own signature legislation, and who is going around telling people that Obamacare through the IRS is going to kill conservatives.
Bachmann, like Orly Taitz, is finding herself on the outs with her fellow right wing extremist lunatics, in part because of legal and ethics violation troubles relating to her epic failure of a presidential campaign. Michele continues to hear crazy voices in her head; in the past she has led people into the state legislature to pray over Senator Dibble's desk - he wrote the recent marriage equality legislation, she wrote the marriage amendment legislation language.
It's pretty clear who won. Praying away the gay never really works.
Now the Tea Party wackos here in Minnesota are trying to pray away the atheism of prominent and wealthy right wing figure George Soros. These people continue to be an embarrassment to the state, and to themselves. Soros is ethnically a Jew who fled Europe because of Nazi persecution, but who is an atheist by choice.
But we know that the right is persistent in trying every way possible to coerce people to be free, so long as freedom means letting them make the decision about how other people are permitted to live their lives, including the right to freedom of religion (or from it).
In spite of trying to appeal to the extremists in Minnesota, it is rumored the MN GOP is going to primary Bachmann in the district she doesn't serve, doesn't live in, but which narrowly elected her last election cycle. With money from the right and left against her, and her poor performance and declining reputation, except for being nuts, Bachmann is now some two points behind her DFL challenger repeating from last time, Jim Graves.
It appears that the right wing extremists are as fond as ever of the wildly crazy political figures. But they seem to be losing interest in those who are chronic failures. That in turn seems to prompt the right wing crazy ladies to greater examples of wild wing nuttery in the hopes of winning their fans back.
I'm skeptical it will work; even the far right is becoming sensitive to being ridiculed for their alternate reality fact averse epic failures.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
In the end, you always pay the Piper
Yesterday's events in Moore, Oklahoma are not the genesis of this post. It would be terribly insensitive to write about such happenings so soon after they have occured. People deserve time to mourn. My thoughts, my deepest sympathies go out to that community. Having grown up in the midwest, I've experienced my share of watches and warnings, witnessed a fair few instances of serious damage caused by nature's fury. I am saddened by the loss of life and the heartbreak being experienced by the survivors. Please do not mistake this post as originating from that tragedy. Anything but.
No, just a coincidence, but I noticed on NPR's news feed for the IPad yesterday that coastal communities in Alaska are experiencing significant flooding as the oceans rise. In one town, the Army Corps of Engineers has estimated the school, which is located on one of the higher spots in town, will be underwarter by 2017.
I note this because I also listened to a story on Minnesota Public Radio over the weekend about a conservative author/commentator who is apparently travelling the country talking on conservative radio stations (of which there are a fair few). He is talking about the fact that conservatives look at liberals and think (paraphrase here), "Liberals see a problem, overhype it, enact regulation and use that to justify new taxes, but on this one (climate change) we (conservatives) got it wrong." The clip on the radio has a conservative radio commentator challenging him saying, "The vast majority of climatologists don't agree you, they dont' agree that humans are causing global warming." He, the man touring the country, replies conservatives, if faced with the fact that 97 out of 100 experts felt one way, would accept that fact as true normally. Further that while human causation isn't 100% confirmed, scientists are "pretty darned certain." Finally he comments to the conservative radio host that in fact, the numbers are exactly the opposite, that in fact the vast majority (97% according to a recent report) of scientists working in the field are convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that it is human caused and that the conservative radio host's information isn't correct. Personally, I suspect the host is talking about meteorologists, aka weathermen and women, not climatologists. Climatologists virtually universally agree climate change is real and human caused (97% or more). Weatherman are to climate science as gem cutters are to geology. Weather is the temperature outsie and what will happen in the next week, climate science is the historical analsyis of WHY it will be 97 or -30 as an average temperature. Conservatives have long used meteorologists as justification, but it is simply not justification, it is self-rationaliztion.
Now a couple of political posturing points. It's absurd to say that liberals are "just looking for an excuse to raise taxes, all the time, about every crisis" as this particular conservative suggested. We want to pay for what we spend, and we want fairness in our tax system. We ALSO look to use taxes to discourage distructive conduct (like smoking) and we're hardly alone. Conservatives voted for taxes on cigarettes as well. Second, it's hardly unique for conservatives to be wrong, look at racism, look at "neo-con" policies like the invasion of Iraq, look at abstinence only sex education. Bluntly, I think it's unusual for conservatives to be right, but I'm willing to admit I'm biased.
Anyway, back to the point - the issue is simply this. Liberals see that the cost of dealing with climate change will be far more than preventing climate change. Sure, we don't want to see entire species wiped out of the ecosystem, a vast tragedy in itself which harms our ability to grow food and feed our planet, but more, in this like in so many things we see that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. A case in point is smoking. Smoking is an anethma on society. People warned, doctors and other researchers warned us for years about the serious health impacts from smoking. My parents told me that people knew smoking wasn't healthy long before it was proven conclusively and adjucated in courts (yet my parents smoked). What they didn't know (and likely they wouldn't admit to if asked) is just how massively destructive smoking was and the immense negative impact it would have to our economy and health care systems. The health care impacts of smoking cost the United States hundreds of billions of dollars. Conservatives stood (for years) on the side of tobacco companies complaining about "nanny-state" tactics, abuses of power, ambulance chasing lawyers, frivolous lawsuits, and the like. They defended the "free market", people made "free choices" - notwithstanding they were lied to, that industry research showing the serious health risks were covered up, lied about, and hidden. This obdurate defense of "capitalist liberties" has lead this nation, in part, down the path of bankruptcy paying to care for those made seriously ill by smoking. This stance is earily similar to the defense of so-called "job creators", which has had a similar impact of helping to bankrupt the country by denying the country of tax receipts it would have collected had tax laws stayed the same as they were in the 1950's, 60's and 70's. Far more important than taxes, though, it has contributed to enormous suffering as people developed smoking related diseases, grew terribly ill, and ultimately died.
And here we are again. Conservatism, according to the man touring the country, listens to reason (with the implication that liberals do less so). Yet where is that reason? If you were faced with a disaster which would cost tens of trillions of dollars to address if left unchecked, and 97% of your experts said it was possible to mitigate, if not prevent, if we act NOW, saving hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars, what would you do? Would you act, or would you act like an ostrich? Do you want to pay to rebuild all the schools along the Alaskan (and Pacific and Altantic) coasts which are within the expected flood zones as the oceans rise? Yes it costs money, money the fossil-fuel industry doesn't want to have to pay (and so hires "scientists" to prepare "reports" which favor doing nothing, and further the industry uses the right-wing media to promote this propoganda), it also will cost money we as an American people will be hard-pressed to find given to address the issue our current tax structure. Yet, it will be far less expensive than paying to rebuild towns, roads, homes, and lives. When 97% of the experts say you can save that money if you act now, you act, if you're sane, if you're "responsible." It's always less costly to prevent the spill than clean up the mess. In the end you always have to pay something to deal with a problem. You can bury your head if you like, but you ultimately ALWAYS have to pay the Piper, it's just a question of how much and for how long and how many lives will be lost along the way.
No, just a coincidence, but I noticed on NPR's news feed for the IPad yesterday that coastal communities in Alaska are experiencing significant flooding as the oceans rise. In one town, the Army Corps of Engineers has estimated the school, which is located on one of the higher spots in town, will be underwarter by 2017.
I note this because I also listened to a story on Minnesota Public Radio over the weekend about a conservative author/commentator who is apparently travelling the country talking on conservative radio stations (of which there are a fair few). He is talking about the fact that conservatives look at liberals and think (paraphrase here), "Liberals see a problem, overhype it, enact regulation and use that to justify new taxes, but on this one (climate change) we (conservatives) got it wrong." The clip on the radio has a conservative radio commentator challenging him saying, "The vast majority of climatologists don't agree you, they dont' agree that humans are causing global warming." He, the man touring the country, replies conservatives, if faced with the fact that 97 out of 100 experts felt one way, would accept that fact as true normally. Further that while human causation isn't 100% confirmed, scientists are "pretty darned certain." Finally he comments to the conservative radio host that in fact, the numbers are exactly the opposite, that in fact the vast majority (97% according to a recent report) of scientists working in the field are convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that it is human caused and that the conservative radio host's information isn't correct. Personally, I suspect the host is talking about meteorologists, aka weathermen and women, not climatologists. Climatologists virtually universally agree climate change is real and human caused (97% or more). Weatherman are to climate science as gem cutters are to geology. Weather is the temperature outsie and what will happen in the next week, climate science is the historical analsyis of WHY it will be 97 or -30 as an average temperature. Conservatives have long used meteorologists as justification, but it is simply not justification, it is self-rationaliztion.
Now a couple of political posturing points. It's absurd to say that liberals are "just looking for an excuse to raise taxes, all the time, about every crisis" as this particular conservative suggested. We want to pay for what we spend, and we want fairness in our tax system. We ALSO look to use taxes to discourage distructive conduct (like smoking) and we're hardly alone. Conservatives voted for taxes on cigarettes as well. Second, it's hardly unique for conservatives to be wrong, look at racism, look at "neo-con" policies like the invasion of Iraq, look at abstinence only sex education. Bluntly, I think it's unusual for conservatives to be right, but I'm willing to admit I'm biased.
Anyway, back to the point - the issue is simply this. Liberals see that the cost of dealing with climate change will be far more than preventing climate change. Sure, we don't want to see entire species wiped out of the ecosystem, a vast tragedy in itself which harms our ability to grow food and feed our planet, but more, in this like in so many things we see that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. A case in point is smoking. Smoking is an anethma on society. People warned, doctors and other researchers warned us for years about the serious health impacts from smoking. My parents told me that people knew smoking wasn't healthy long before it was proven conclusively and adjucated in courts (yet my parents smoked). What they didn't know (and likely they wouldn't admit to if asked) is just how massively destructive smoking was and the immense negative impact it would have to our economy and health care systems. The health care impacts of smoking cost the United States hundreds of billions of dollars. Conservatives stood (for years) on the side of tobacco companies complaining about "nanny-state" tactics, abuses of power, ambulance chasing lawyers, frivolous lawsuits, and the like. They defended the "free market", people made "free choices" - notwithstanding they were lied to, that industry research showing the serious health risks were covered up, lied about, and hidden. This obdurate defense of "capitalist liberties" has lead this nation, in part, down the path of bankruptcy paying to care for those made seriously ill by smoking. This stance is earily similar to the defense of so-called "job creators", which has had a similar impact of helping to bankrupt the country by denying the country of tax receipts it would have collected had tax laws stayed the same as they were in the 1950's, 60's and 70's. Far more important than taxes, though, it has contributed to enormous suffering as people developed smoking related diseases, grew terribly ill, and ultimately died.
And here we are again. Conservatism, according to the man touring the country, listens to reason (with the implication that liberals do less so). Yet where is that reason? If you were faced with a disaster which would cost tens of trillions of dollars to address if left unchecked, and 97% of your experts said it was possible to mitigate, if not prevent, if we act NOW, saving hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars, what would you do? Would you act, or would you act like an ostrich? Do you want to pay to rebuild all the schools along the Alaskan (and Pacific and Altantic) coasts which are within the expected flood zones as the oceans rise? Yes it costs money, money the fossil-fuel industry doesn't want to have to pay (and so hires "scientists" to prepare "reports" which favor doing nothing, and further the industry uses the right-wing media to promote this propoganda), it also will cost money we as an American people will be hard-pressed to find given to address the issue our current tax structure. Yet, it will be far less expensive than paying to rebuild towns, roads, homes, and lives. When 97% of the experts say you can save that money if you act now, you act, if you're sane, if you're "responsible." It's always less costly to prevent the spill than clean up the mess. In the end you always have to pay something to deal with a problem. You can bury your head if you like, but you ultimately ALWAYS have to pay the Piper, it's just a question of how much and for how long and how many lives will be lost along the way.
Monday, May 20, 2013
First Ad about Maryland's New Gun Laws from the Marylanders to Prevent Gun Violence Education Fund
This is the first ad from the Marylanders to Prevent Gun Violence Education Fund, focusing on the effectiveness of the fingerprint licensing provision in Maryland's Firearms Safety Act, which was signed into law by Gov. O'Malley on May 16, 2013. In the five states where fingerprint licensing is currently required for handgun purchases, gun death rates are among the lowest in the nation. According to experts at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, cities in states with handgun purchaser licensing laws have much lower rates of within-state illegal gun trafficking than those without licensing.
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Gun Control Works
In 1934, The National Firearms Act was passed which was aimed at regulating machine guns, sawed-off shotguns, silencers, and other firearms used by criminals. The NFA required that all machine guns were to be registered. Additionally, all people who wanted to own these items
were to be fingerprinted and submitted to an extensive and
time-consuming—this was long before the Internet— background check; and local Law Enforcement was also required to give permission for
ownership.
The NFA is relevant to the current debate because it is a strong and comprehensive gun-control law. But the NRA continually argues that gun-control laws are ineffective. This loudly declared claim has also given rise to their widely proclaimed slogan: WHEN GUNS ARE OUTLAWED, ONLY OUTLAWS WILL HAVE GUNS...Even the "pro-gun" side concedes that these laws have been effective.
But here are the numbers. Machine gun use in crimes now is negligible. ATF data from 1994 reveals that machine guns accounted for less than 0.1 percent of all guns traced to crime in that year. In 2000, forty-six cities conducted a comprehensive tracing of their crime guns, and they found in only twelve cities that machine guns constituted 0.1 percent of their crime guns. In Las Vegas alone the number was higher; there, machine guns made up 0.5 percent of all crime guns.
RED ALERT ~ Adam Kokesh armed march on Washington SCAM
I have to admit some curiosity about what might be the motive for
Adam Kokesh's March on Washington, DC. It seems he was once a War
Protestor who managed to get a spot on Russia Today, but was too weird
for even RT.
And then I found this:
Anyway, this find comes on top of reading this blog post.
"Oh, that Mr. Hitler couldn't mean all the things he says in Mein Kampf about the Jews. Anyway, what could he do? Try and kill us all?"
I guess we can add to that line of thinking: "Well, we have guns this time".
As N. A. Browne said in The Myth of Nazi Gun Control:
And then I found this:
Anyway, this find comes on top of reading this blog post.
"Oh, that Mr. Hitler couldn't mean all the things he says in Mein Kampf about the Jews. Anyway, what could he do? Try and kill us all?"
I guess we can add to that line of thinking: "Well, we have guns this time".
As N. A. Browne said in The Myth of Nazi Gun Control:
A more farfetched question is the hypothetical proposition of armed Jewish resistance. First, they were not commonly armed even prior to the 1928 Law. Second, Jews had seen pogroms before and had survived them, though not without suffering. They would expect that this one would, as had the past ones, eventually subside and permit a return to normalcy. Many considered themselves “patriotic Germans” for their service in the first World War. These simply were not people prepared to stage violent resistance. Nor were they alone in this mode of appeasement. The defiance of “never again” is not so much a warning to potential oppressors as it is a challenge to Jews to reject the passive response to pogrom. Third, it hardly seems conceivable that armed resistance by Jews (or any other target group) would have led to any weakening of Nazi rule, let alone a full scale popular rebellion; on the contrary, it seems more likely it would have strengthened the support the Nazis already had. Their foul lies about Jewish perfidy would have been given a grain of substance. To project backward and speculate thus is to fail to learn the lesson history has so painfully provided.in short, those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.
Obama 3; GOP 0
Obama's approval ratings went UP, from the Gallop poll on Monday to the Gallop poll on Saturday; his disapproval ratings went DOWN from Monday to Saturday. And since his second inauguration in January, Obama's approval ratings with Republicans has gone up, from 11% in January to 15% in May.
Tsk! tsk! tsk! - BAD Republicans! Odds are you will double down on what didn't work; you seem incapable of learning from your mistakes.
THAT should be entertaining...the GOP might have to enact gun control, just to avoid shooting themselves in the foot again (or other parts).
Nah.
Tsk! tsk! tsk! - BAD Republicans! Odds are you will double down on what didn't work; you seem incapable of learning from your mistakes.
THAT should be entertaining...the GOP might have to enact gun control, just to avoid shooting themselves in the foot again (or other parts).
Nah.
You have a problem if Barack Obama is a Muslim.
Not a question, but a statement since the Constitution that some people claim to respect and all that says (Article VI):
You might have missed that bit since that paragraph comes right after:
But, maybe some of you aren't the strong supporters of the Constitution that you claim to be.
Or, maybe you just need to brush up on what exactly it is that you are supposed to be defending.
The US is a secular nation: understand that fact.
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.Repeat that last part just to make it clear to you who don't get that the US is a SECULAR Society (like it or not):
no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.That means it doesn't matter what religion Barack Obama (or Mitt Romney or anybody else for that matter) happens to be.
You might have missed that bit since that paragraph comes right after:
This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.And if you don't think the founders would support this: guess again:
"Both House and Ground were vested in Trustees, expressly for the Use of any Preacher of any religious Persuasion who might desire to say something to the People of Philadelphia, the Design [purpose] in building not being to accommodate any particular Sect, but the Inhabitants in general, so that even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a Missionary to preach Mahometanism [Islam] to us, he would find a Pulpit at his Service. "As I said, you have a problem because the Constitution isn't on your side if you are trying to make someone's religion an issue in US politics. In fact, religion would not intrude in US politics given the US's being a secular state--I only wish more people would be disgusted by this trend.
But, maybe some of you aren't the strong supporters of the Constitution that you claim to be.
Or, maybe you just need to brush up on what exactly it is that you are supposed to be defending.
The US is a secular nation: understand that fact.
It's time to put the GO in GOP: not governing, not being ethical, not being honest....Buh BYE!
I think it is a fair guess that this is going to backfire on the right quite explosively.
Thanks to ericlews for collecting some of the examples here, at the daily Kos; these are NOT the only instances of this strategy on the right:
Letter from the Heritage Foundation, headed by former Senator until recently, Jim DeMint:
and from the National Journal:
Thanks to ericlews for collecting some of the examples here, at the daily Kos; these are NOT the only instances of this strategy on the right:
Letter from the Heritage Foundation, headed by former Senator until recently, Jim DeMint:
Dear Speaker Boehner and Leader Cantor:
For the first time, the activities of the Obama administration are receiving a sustained public vetting. Americans’ outrage over Benghazi is amplified by the Internal Revenue Service’s intimidation of conservative grassroots organizations and a cascade of negative headlines. There is the real sense the Obama administration has been less than forthright with the American people, the press and lawmakers.
Recent events have rightly focused the nation’s attention squarely on the actions of the Obama administration. It is incumbent upon the House of Representatives to conduct oversight hearings on those actions, but it would be imprudent to do anything that shifts the focus from the Obama administration to the ideological differences within the House Republican Conference.
To that end, we urge you to avoid bringing any legislation to the House Floor that could expose or highlight major schisms within the conference. Legislation such as the Internet sales tax or the FARRM Act which contains nearly $800 billion in food stamp spending, would give the press a reason to shift their attention away from the failures of the Obama administration to write another “circular firing squad” article.
Make no mistake, principled conservatives will still oppose bad policy if it comes to the floor. Rather than scheduling such legislation for consideration, we urge you to keep the attention focused squarely on the Obama administration. As the public’s trust in their government continues to erode, it is incumbent upon those of us who support a smaller, less intrusive government to lead.
Sincerely,
Michael A. Needham
Chief Executive Officer
Heritage Action for America
and from the National Journal:
...Republicans would be much wiser to pursue a third option: Dig up as much damaging information as they can about the Obama administration and leak it to reporters they know will write tough stories that won’t be traced back to the source. That way, the public won’t see the GOP as being obsessed with attacking the other side and playing gotcha at the expense of the big issues facing the country—the ones voters really care about.
Meanwhile, everyone in Washington will watch polls for signs of blood in the water, indications that the controversies or scandals—depending upon your perspective—are taking a political toll on Obama’s job-approval numbers.
...
For now, we just watch and wait to see which one—or more—of these issues takes on legs. If none does, will it be something else? History says something always happens in the second term.
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